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<a href="http://www.examiner.com/cointelpro-in-national/omaha-two-convicted-cointelpro-tainted-trial-40-years-ago-nebraska">
http://www.examiner.com/cointelpro-in-national/omaha-two-convicted-cointelpro-tainted-trial-40-years-ago-nebraska</a>
<br><br>
</font><h2><font size=4><b>Omaha Two convicted in COINTELPRO tainted
trial 40 years ago in Nebraska</b></font></h2>
<ul>
<li><font size=3>By
<a href="http://www.examiner.com/user-richardsonreports">Michael
Richardson</a>, COINTELPRO Examiner
<li>April 17th, 2011 12:15 pm ET
</ul><b>Omaha Two story: April 17, 1971<br><br>
</b>After three weeks of trial and four days of deliberation, the jury of
one black` and eleven white jurors returned a guilty verdict against
<a href="http://www.examiner.com/cointelpro-in-national/prison-interview-with-ed-poindexter-on-cointelpro-and-the-omaha-police">
Edward Poindexter</a> and
<a href="http://www.examiner.com/cointelpro-in-national/prison-interview-with-mondo-we-langa-on-cointelpro-and-omaha-two-case">
Mondo we Langa</a>, then David Rice, for the August 17, 1970 bombing
murder of Omaha police officer
<a href="http://www.examiner.com/cointelpro-in-national/omaha-patrolman-larry-minard-killed-ambush-bombing-after-911-call">
Larry Minard, Sr</a>.<br><br>
The two men were leaders of Omaha’s affiliate chapter of the Black
Panther Party known as the National Committee to Combat Fascism.
Unknown to the jury, Mondo and Poindexter were personal targets of
<a href="http://www.examiner.com/cointelpro-in-national/fbi-s-director-hoover-let-killer-of-omaha-policeman-get-away-with-murder-40-years-ago">
J. Edgar Hoover</a>, the director of the Federal Bureau of
Investigation. As part of his clandestine
<a href="http://www.examiner.com/cointelpro-in-national/crimes-of-cointelpro-heard-at-northeastern-law-school-seminar">
COINTELPRO</a> operation against the Black Panthers, Hoover had ordered
the withholding of evidence from the FBI crime laboratory on the identity
of Minard’s killer.<br><br>
After
<a href="http://www.examiner.com/cointelpro-in-national/j-edgar-hoover-gave-order-to-let-policeman-s-killer-get-away-with-murder">
Hoover’s order to cancel a lab report</a> on the recording of the 911
caller that lured Minard and seven other officers to the deadly trap in a
vacant house, the Douglas County jury never got to hear the voice of
Minard’s killer captured on the newly installed 911 phone
system.<br><br>
After 25 hours of deliberations the verdict was returned on Saturday when
the courthouse was locked up. On short notice, District Judge
Donald Hamilton reconvened court to the smallest audience of the entire
trial, composed primarily of court personnel with few outside
spectators.<br><br>
The <i>Omaha World-Herald</i> was tipped off by a sheriff’s deputy and
was on hand to report the scene:<br><br>
“The press, barred from the Courthouse Saturday on orders from Sheriff
Theodore Janing, was notified through telephone calls by deputies to
individual reporters. The door of the Courthouse never was opened
to the public. Spectators had to sign in to enter the building and
only a few of them--mostly persons connected with the government or the
courts--were in the fifth floor courtroom when the jurors entered about
noon.”<br><br>
Judge Hamilton asked the jury if a verdict had been reached and was told
a decision had been made. The verdict was handed to a court clerk
to read out loud.<br><br>
Mondo we Langa was brightly dressed in a yellow shirt and green
pants. Mondo sat quietly without expression.<br><br>
Ed Poindexter was wearing blue denim clothes and looked straight
ahead.<br><br>
“Guilty” was the verdict, first for Poindexter and then for Mondo.
The jury spared their lives and did not opt for execution in Nebraska’s
electric chair.<br>
Advertisement <br><br>
Defense attorneys Thomas Kenney and David Herzog asked that each juror
acknowledge the decision. All jurors did although most spoke very
quietly in the near empty courtroom.<br><br>
Judge Hamilton ordered the two Black Panthers taken to the Nebraska State
Penitentiary to serve their sentences “at hard labor.”<br><br>
The jury foreman, Myron J. Widger, Jr. from Millard, was asked by the
Omaha World-Herald what took the jury so long. “There were a lot of
little things,” Widger stated.<br><br>
Widger said the nine women and three men on the jury agreed they would
not discuss details of their deliberations.<br><br>
Several theories circulated as to the reason for life sentences rather
than execution as sought by the prosecutors. One theory attributed
the life sentences to Public Defender Frank
<a href="http://www.examiner.com/cointelpro-in-national/closing-arguments-larry-minard-case-put-american-system-of-justice-on-trial">
Morrison’s eloquent closing argument</a>. Another theory was that
the lone black juror insisted on life sentences or would not agree to a
unanimous verdict. A third theory was simply that there was doubt
in the jury, despite the verdict, about the involvement of the two Black
Panther leaders in the crime.<br><br>
Judge Hamilton gave the <i>Omaha World Herald</i> a post-trial interview
and said the trial was “in some ways anticlimactic” after his ruling that
evidence seized from a search of Mondo’s house could be
admitted.<br><br>
Poindexter cursed when he was asked if he wished to be interviewed and he
was led to jail in handcuffs without making a statement.<br><br>
Mondo told an impromptu courthouse news conference on Saturday after the
verdict, the prosecution “systematically excluded” young persons and
minority groups from the jury and that he did not get a fair
trial.<br><br>
“I’m not going down to the state pen and say everything is
beautiful. I’m going to fight it and I’m going to go back onto the
streets and do the same things, speaking out against the evils of the
system which got me convicted,’ declared Mondo we Langa. “I will
continue to organize people to bring about a reconstruction of the
government of the United States.”<br><br>
Mondo said the case against him was a “maze of conjectures.” Mondo
criticized the Omaha World Herald and also local radio and TV stations
for leaning “towards the prosecution” during the trial. The
newspaper coverage was the “most ridiculous”.<br><br>
Not covered by any media was the secret manipulation of the trial by J.
Edgar Hoover who had kept evidence from the jury--the voice of Larry
Minard’s killer.<br><br>
Within an hour of the reading of the verdict, Ed Poindexter and Mondo we
Langa were transported to the maximum-security state prison in
Lincoln. Four decades later, both men remain imprisoned and
continue to deny any involvement in Minard’s death.<br><br>
<b>To view all of the Omaha Two story articles click
<a href="http://www.examiner.com/omaha-two-story-in-national">HERE</a><br>
<br>
</b><i>Permission granted to reprint<br><br>
</i>Michael Richardson<br>
COINTELPRO Examiner<br>
Examiner.com<br><br>
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